Social Mobility Committee Report

Baroness Prosser Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Prosser (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to my noble friend Lady Corston for her report and for enabling us to have this important debate. I also add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Fraser, on his maiden speech and my best wishes to him. I welcome him to this House.

Recent decisions by the citizens of both the United Kingdom and the United States of America have made it clear that there is a great deal of discontent among ordinary voters in both countries. It is a commonly held view that voting patterns in the referendum in the UK on membership of the European Union, and in the election of the next president of the United States, reflected great concern and anxiety at the nature and pace of industrial change. Technological developments plus increased globalisation have led to a 20 years-long industrial revolution—so far—and as in all revolutions, there are winners and losers.

The role of the state in these circumstances is to try as far as possible to take advantage of the new opportunities which arise. I believe we have done quite a lot of that, for example by developing financial and other services. The state also has a duty to mitigate as far as possible the negative effects on the losers; this is where we could and should have done better. We wait to see the overall content of the Government’s industrial strategy but it must be a fair bet that the growth of our technological offer will be a key and central part of it. Yet if this is our aim we need to take a long, hard look at our education system which is geared, as it appears to many, to focus its efforts rather too closely on academic achievers. If social mobility is to be a reality for that huge swathe of the population who are either unsuited to higher academic learning or do not want to end up dealing with a massive debt, then we have to embrace the vocational agenda with more determination and vigour.

The Government’s response to my noble friend’s report at Recommendation 8 states that the case for serious investment in careers advice is clear and the intention to invest £90 million is very welcome, even though it is hard to see how this will fix a system that is, frankly, a busted flush. However, I note that the recommendation, which has already been mentioned, to,

“commission a cost benefit analysis of increasing funding for careers education in school and independent careers guidance … in the context of social mobility”,

has not been taken up. Perhaps the Minister could tell the House the reason for this.

I also repeat my concern, expressed previously in this House, regarding the conflict faced by schools when balancing the advice given to pupils to move on to a different, and probably more suitable, educational establishment against the fact that as the pupil moves, so the funding moves with them. Many schools therefore see that advising a pupil to move is not in their immediate interests. My concern is shared by many engaged in the educational field and I have yet to receive an answer to this dilemma. Again, could the Minister address this point, which was also raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler?

I am of course aware that the Government are grappling with the issue of apprenticeships. I am not wholly convinced that establishing a target of 3 million apprenticeships was a sensible move, requiring as it does 26,000 starts per week—never mind the quality, feel the width. Given that we are competing in a global arena and that our educational statistics do not stack up well against those of many other countries, being 21st in the world of science and 27th in maths according to the OECD data, it would seem more sensible to look for a less frantic approach to training young people with a bit more emphasis on a world-class standard.

Overall, the Government’s response to the report contains many warm words but not a lot of substance. In particular, the use of numbers of pupils rather than percentages to claim improvements in the reading ability of six year-olds, for example, or attendance at schools rated good or outstanding is disingenuous, given the overall rise in pupil numbers. It has also been extremely worrying to note the concerns set out in the report of the National Audit Office, stating as it does that schools face an 8% spending cut. The Department for Education claims that its funding per pupil is increasing but it fails to take into account the fact that schools’ costs will increase by more. We also have a poor track record when it comes to funding training. The apprenticeship levy will obviously help here, but for too long vocational training has been seen as the poor relation and too many employers have been allowed to get away with poaching rather than developing talent. We are the poor relation compared to the rest of Europe.

Let me give a little thought to finance. Everybody is aware of the wonderful success that the UK had at this year’s Olympic Games. We had our best medal results ever and were world leaders. Why was this, we ask ourselves? Massively good organisation was one thing; absolute commitment and hard work by the participants was another. But neither of those would have brought the results we had without a huge increase in the amount of money available. I am not arguing that we should put lottery money into our education and training systems, but nothing comes for nothing in this world and insufficient funding will have a negative effect on educational outcomes and on our social mobility index.

Social mobility in the 21st century is not just about the path from primary to senior school, then to university or college and on to work. People studying today will no doubt still be working well into their seventies and during that time the requirements for their skills and training will change, particularly as technology continues to develop. We therefore have to have policies and programmes which relate to lifelong learning and which are capable of meeting the needs of a modern economy, and giving people the opportunity to be socially mobile more than once in their lives.